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On July 16, 2008, the National Park Service issued a Record of Decision Amendment – Sylvan Pass Management (345 Kb pdf). The Amendment only addresses avalanche management at Sylvan Pass in Yellowstone National Park. Unless specifically modified by the Amendment, all other elements of the November 20, 2007, Record of Decision (ROD) remain in place. The Amendment takes into consideration the work of the Sylvan Pass Study Group (the National Park Service, State of Wyoming, Park County, Wyoming, and the City of Cody) and their June 3, 2008, recommendation to the Intermountain Regional Director of the National Park Service (see below)
In the November 20, 2007 Record of Decision for Winter Use Planning, the National Park Service addressed the Sylvan Pass area on the East Entrance Road of Yellowstone National Park. The Record of Decision stated,
“This decision addresses Sylvan Pass in Yellowstone. For the winter season of 2007-2008 the pass will be managed continuing the combined program outlined in the 2004 Temporary Plan. After the winter of 2007-2008, in order to maximize risk reduction, the pass would be open and managed using full avalanche forecasting (as defined in the Sylvan Pass Operational Risk Management Assessment). When full forecasting indicates the pass is safe, the pass would be open to oversnow travel (both motorized and non-motorized access).
"The National Park Service will, in good faith, work cooperatively with the State of Wyoming, Park County, Wyoming and the town of Cody to determine how to provide continued snowmobile and snowcoach motorized oversnow access to Yellowstone National Park through the East Gate via Sylvan Pass in the winter use seasons beyond 2007-2008.
"The National Park Service will meet with representatives of the State of Wyoming, Park County, Wyoming and the town of Cody to further explore reasonable avalanche and access mitigation safety measures and costs. In order to provide adequate time to amend this Record of Decision reflecting a potential consensus of the parties and to promulgate a new regulation reflecting the amended decision for the 2008-2009 winter use season and beyond, consensus should be reached by June 1, 2008.”
This site will post information related to the meetings between the governmental representatives, who are identified as the Sylvan Pass Study Group. The group consists of representatives from Yellowstone National Park, the City of Cody, Wyoming, State of Wyoming, Park County, Wyoming, and Wyoming elected officials.
Carl Moore of Santa Fe, New Mexico, was asked by the Intermountain Region of the National Park Service to design and facilitate how the “exploration” would occur. He invited Yellowstone National Park and the governments of Wyoming, Park County and the City of Cody to each send two representatives to participate in the process. Dr. Moore was assisted in the facilitation by Rick Frost of the National Park Service.
The group met on December 17, 2007, and reviewed and revised the ground rules for the Study Group. A link to the final ground rules is below.
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